1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a basketball return for deflecting a basketball, which has passed through an annular basketball hoop, in a direction away from a backboard on which the basketball hoop is mounted.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Objects
A typical homeowner's basketball goal assembly includes an annular rim mounted on a backboard which in turn is mounted on a ground embedded, vertical pole adjacent one lateral side of a concrete driveway. When a basketball passes through such a goal, the basketball frequently will not remain "in play" on the concrete driveway, but rather will drop onto the adjacent grass and possibly bounce into a neighboring yard, an adjacent street, or other undesirable locations. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and novel basketball return for deflecting a basketball, which has passed through a basketball hoop, in a direction away from the basketball backboard.
Various basketball return devices have been provided heretofore such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,233,896, issued to J. L. King on Feb. 8, 1966 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,550, issued to James R. McNabb on Dec. 4, 1983. Each of these prior art devices utilizes a chute which extends in a path from a location generally at the basketball rim to the feet of the player. Such prior art devices are cumbersome, complicated, expensive and not, easily disassembled.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,799,543, issued to Joseph R. Steele, Jr. on Mar. 26, 1974 discloses a basketball deflector which is detachably mounted on the rim via a series of magnets which are relatively expensive and have limited ability to maintain the deflector in position.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,814,421, issued to William Spier, Jr. on June 4, 1974 likewisely discloses a chute which is somewhat shorter than the McNabb and King devices, but nonetheless, is relatively expensive, complicated, and substantially different from applicant's construction.
Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a basketball return deflector which is simple, easy to construct, easy to mount and dismount and relatively inexpensive.
Basketball goal assemblies typically include a vertically disposed backboard mounting a generally horizontally disposed basketball hoop via a 90.degree. bracket assembly having a flat vertical plate provided with four bolt holes therethrough which receive bolts that couple the bracket to the backboard. A deflector constructed according to the present invention includes a flat mounting plate which is disposed between the mounting bracket and the backboard. It may occur that relatively young players will have to mount this device on a used assembly and it would be cumbersome if, prior to installing the basketball return, the young user would have to completely remove the basketball hoop from the backboard. Accordingly, still another object of the present invention is to provide a new and novel basketball return which can be mounted between the hoop mounting bracket and the backboard without the necessity of completely removing the basketball hoop from the backboard.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a basketball return deflector which can be securely mounted by sandwiching a portion of the deflector between the bracket for mounting the basketball hoop and the backboard.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a basketball return deflector utilizing a minimum amount of material.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.